Class: 5sc1 Name: ADHWA BINTI ANUAR I/C No.

: 940705-08-6386 CHAPTER 2 DARE TO BE DIFFERENT Name: AISYAH BINTI MOOSAH AL-MUSTAFA YOSUF I/C No.: 941003-08-6618

Being Different, Being Successfully You!

Are you tired of playing games, wearing masks or trying to be someone other than yourself? Wouldn t you like the freedom to just be accepted for who you are, without the pressure to be someone you really don t know how to be? Would you like to learn how to embrace your uniqueness and resist pull to be like everyone else? You can t stand out when you look like everyone else. You can t inspire or challenge others when you are just as fearful as them to stand out and be noticed. To put yourself in a position where people disagree with you. To be criticized, abused, and disbelieved. Life is a golden opportunity, and we should use it as good as we can. You are a unique individual. It s time that we dare ourselves as different and stop being insecure of what we are. The question is, do you dare to be different? Most of us have a hard time being different. Standing tall on the stage is pretty easy. But standing up in the rest of the world requires a lot of effort. You really have to be a mental ninja. That probably explains why we all aren t more successful. It s not entirely our fault for having this fear. Everything we were ever taught since the beginning of baby-dom was about fitting in . As we entered school, we were told to get along with everyone even when we saw that bad people were taking advantage of those around us. As long as they didn t mess with us, we were cool . When we went into the public, we were told that it is embarrassing to make a scene even though for us it seemed like we were standing up for something. We were expressing ourselves. All these fitting-in qualities produce a Grade A of absolute guarantee batch of status quo. But they don t produce success the deeply inspiring breakthrough that we dream about. Success is the opposite of being like everyone else. The reality is that most of us don t like ourselves in our current state. We wish we were less fearful, selfish, and more kind. We know it about ourselves but hope that no one else find out. It s not easy, but didn t we know that success was hard in the first place? Whether it s changing your title on your business card from Receptionist to Diva of First Impression or presenting the exact opposite of what all your competitors have put together you ll find yourself conquering more when you put in the emotional investment to be different. I know that most of us do not dare to be different. But we need to be if we want to be above the average. However, do you dare to be different? This question sound simple but might not be easy to

answer. Though, how it s answered will make a difference between excellence and mediocrity. Check yourself and take actions! The first thing you should ask yourself is, Do you have a dream? I believe one of the main reasons people just follow the herd is they don t have a dream. Or not daring to have one. If there is nothing to pursue then why bother being different? But a dream is what sets you above the average. Not having one means going to mediocrity on autopilot. I m sure you have a dream deep inside of you. It might be something from your childhood. Maybe for a long time you have been too busy to let the little voice of your dream be heard. This is the right time to heed that little voice. If you have found your dream, the next question is whether or not you have the courage to follow it. Are you doing what you want or what you should? There are often implicit rules about what someone should do in a particular situation. For example, when there are two job opportunities, the rule says that you should take the one with higher pay. But what is it that YOU want? Does it achieve you dream? Maybe the job with less pay will help you achieve your dream while the one with the higher pay doesn t. Do you worry more about being loved than being what you love? Another reason why we don t dare to be different is because we are trying to meet other people s expectations. We often worry more about what other people will say than what matters to us. But living someone else s life is a bad way to live your life. Why should we lose opportunity because of what others say? Do you choose what is safe then what is right? Maybe you are trying to meet other people s expectations. Maybe you just don t want to take the risks and therefore choose to play safe. But this is exactly what many old people regret. When they were ask in a study about what they regretted most and what they would do differently, most of them answered: I wish I had risked more. Don t let the same regret happen to you. Be Courageous. You must have the courage to be different. Unhappiness and frustration happen when we reject our uniqueness and try to be like each other. If you re going to be successful of being completely you, then you re going to have to take a chance on not being like everyone else. Who Decides Your Worth? Becoming a people pleaser is one of the easiest things we can do but it can ultimately make us very unhappy. When we begin pleasing other, we begin to hear comments that make us feel good about ourselves. That s okay as long as we don t derive our sense of worth from it. People are too fickle for us to place our senses of worth in their opinions. We re worth something because we re worth something! Not because of what people think or say about us. People pleasers allow others to control their lives in order to gain acceptance and approval. But we shouldn t let other people s opinions of us control our actions. Walking In Love. At the same time, we can t just do anything we want, whenever we want, with total disregard for the feelings of others. We can t say, I m going to do this, and if you don t like it, that s your problem! We should love others, and love doesn t behave that way. However we must not

allow people to manipulate and control us to the point that we re never free to be who we are. If we do, we ll always try to become the person we think others expect us to be. Break Out of The Mould. People will always try to fit us into their mould, partly due to their own insecurity. It makes them feel better about what they are doing if they can get someone else to do it too. Very few people have the ability to be who they are and let everyone else be who they are. They are several things that we could think about in our road to successfully be ourselves: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Being different won t kill you. Being different will get you noticed. Being different won t have people outwardly lauding you [at least at first] Being different secretly makes people respect you. Being different positions you best to be able to change the world. It s our obsessive compulsions that yield greatness, not our penchant for compromise. It s Thomas Edison trying one more time after the 983rd failed attempt to build a working light bulb. It s Harland Sanders trying the 1 009th time to convince a restaurant to buy his famous chicken recipe. It s Oprah Winfrey sharing hope for the sexually abuse in spite of her own scars. It s about you deciding that being your same self or like anyone you know is no longer available. It s about being different. And us starting that TODAY.